ICT for crisis management, disaster risk reduction and peace-building, brought to you by the ICT4Peace Foundation
Since 2004, the ICT4Peace Foundation has championed the strategic, sustainable and meaningful use of ICTs for crisis management, disaster risk reduction and peacebuilding. The Foundation’s sustained and strategic input, stocktaking exercises, evaluations, briefings, workshops and ideation has contributed to the strengthening of humanitarian aid structures, as well as the peacekeeping and peacebuilding – at the United Nations, and beyond. Uniquely, we work at and are called upon by the highest levels of government and inter-governmental bodies and also have deep, trusted, multi-stakeholder connections to grassroots activist, civil society and rights movements.
Pioneering output includes working with the UN on crisis information management platforms, developing the Crisis Information Management Strategy of the UN Secretary General (A/65/491), technical evaluations of key humanitarian platforms, contributing to the development of path-breaking information exchange protocols, the hosting of information sharing and collaboration platforms, creation of mission and disaster specific wikis, training on situational awareness and open source intelligence gathering including social media verification, strategizing the use of Big Data around peacekeeping and peacebuilding, the development of a rights based approach to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in support of peacekeeping and curation of an annual, high-level UN meeting on crisis information management from 2008 – 2015.
Since 2017, we have pioneered the conversations around the ethics, rights and use of Artificial Intelligence and related fields in peacebuilding, including the laws around the use of autonomous weapons in peacetime. We are also actively contributing to the thinking and research around frontier technologies that will increasingly define the information, peace and conflict landscapes.
Promotion of a secure and peaceful cyberspace
An open, secure, stable, accessible and peaceful ICT environment is essential for all and requires effective cooperation among states, civil society and private sector to reduce risks to international peace and security, and secure economic and social development. ICTs provide immense opportunities for social and economic development and continue to grow in importance for the international community. There are, however, disturbing trends in the global ICT environment, including a dramatic increase in incidents involving the malicious use of ICTs by State and non-State actors. These trends create risks for all states, their societies and citizens. These trends create risks for all States, and the misuse of ICTs may harm international peace and security. The use of ICTs for terrorist purposes, beyond recruitment, financing, training and incitement, including for terrorist attacks against ICTs or ICT-dependent infrastructure, is an increasing possibility, which if left unaddressed may threaten international peace and security. Critical, timely and sustained interventions by the Foundation towards capacity building in cyber security policy, strategy and diplomacy is playing an essential role in (1) States engaging in international cooperation and negotiations (as outlined in GGE reports on norms and CBMs), (2) enabling countries to secure its ICT infrastructure for economic and social development and (3) to strengthen the global ICT network and to ensure their peaceful use for economic and social development.
